The late father of presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg was a proponent of the work of Antonio Gramsci, considered the godfather of cultural marxism.

Dr. Joseph Buttigieg served as professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, where he was a faculty member for nearly 40 years before his passing at age 71 on Jan. 27.

A founding member and president of the International Gramsci Society, Prof. Buttigieg edited and translated Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, a manifesto on communist revolution. He was also appointed by the Italian minister of culture to a commission of experts supervising Gramsci’s complete works. His articles on Gramsci have been translated into multiple languages.

Professor Buttigieg sat on the advisory board of the journal “Rethinking Marxism,” and was an editor of “Boundary 2,” a journal that also promoted socialist thought. He also participated in the 150th anniversary of Karl Marx & Richard Engels’ Communist Manifesto, whose prose he lauded for its “poignancy.”

Father John Jenkins, controversial president of Notre Dame, praised Prof. Buttigieg after his passing.

“Joe was a superb scholar, an inspirational teacher and a pioneering leader as the inaugural director of the fledgling Hesburgh-Yusko Scholars Program,” said Jenkins.

The obituary on Notre Dame’s website acknowledges Pete Buttigieg’s “gay marriage” to partner Chasten Glezman: “Buttigieg is survived by his wife, Anne Montgomery, who was a member of the Notre Dame faculty for 29 years, and his son, Pete (Chasten Glezman), the mayor of South Bend.”

Antonio Gramsci, Godfather of Cultural Marxism

Gramsci, born in 1891, was founder and leader of the Communist Party of Italy. He’s best known for his writings from prison, when he was jailed under Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime.

Gramsci rejected violent overthrow of capitalist governments in favor of gradual revolution through communist infiltration of the culture and societal structures, implementing socialism through what his disciple Rudi Dutschke called “the long march through the institutions.” Gramsci believed changing ideology in the ruling elite — whether in media, education, courts, politics or other structures — was more powerful and enduring than bloody revolution.

Public enemy number one for Gramsci was the Catholic Church because of the “ideological” hold it had over the masses.

“Gramsci’s principle was that [Communists] must begin by influencing the culture, winning the intellectuals, the teachers, implanting itself in the press, the media, the publishing houses,” said French philosopher Jean-François Revel.

Like Father, Like Son

If Pete Buttigieg’s public witness tells us anything, it’s that he’s a faithful disciple and product of his marxist father. There’s little evidence that the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend has explicitly promoted Gramsci, but Buttigieg’s life and politics bespeak a wholesale rejection of the Catholic faith in which he was baptized in favor of an amoral philosophy that leaves God out of the equation.

In his autobiography, Buttigieg called his dad a “man of the left, no easy thing on a campus like Notre Dame’s in the 1980s.”

“[T]he more I heard these aging professors talk,” Buttigieg said of his parents’ dinner guests, “the more I wanted to learn how to decrypt their sentences, and to grasp the political backstory of the grave concerns that commanded their attention and aroused such fist-pounding dinner debate.”

According to the Washington Examiner, “Pete wrote that his dad was supportive when he came out as gay. He and his husband bought a house in South Bend around the corner from his parents, which gave the couple ‘a good support network despite our work and travel schedules’ when they decided to get a dog.”

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The first openly gay presidential candidate, Buttigieg has proudly flaunted his “marriage” to Chasten Glezman, a gay activist who joked during his keynote speech at the 2019 Houston Human Rights Campaign dinner that he “could be the first man in history to pick out the White House china” — referring to duties traditionally reserved to the First Lady.

On abortion, Buttigieg has repeatedly rationalized his stance by claiming that male politicians should not intrude into decisions between a woman and her doctor. He has also offered implicit support for infanticide measures being proposed and enacted in various states.

“Radical leftists in the United States, Europe and Latin America have adopted Gramsci’s methods and have made a point of infiltrating churches, universities and media outlets,” wrote George Marlin. “University curricula teach that all cultures must be equally respected — even the ones that directly contradict Christian values. In the name of human rights, secular humanist organizations have promoted policies that have eliminated Judeo-Christian moral restraints.”

“Pope Benedict XVI has wisely warned that the replacement of the West’s Christian roots with moral relativism has ushered in a ‘confused ideology of liberty [that] leads to a dogmatism that is proving ever more hostile to real liberty,'” Marlin continued, adding that “the Holy Father fears that the West may be entering a new Dark Age in which man exists solely for the benefit of a divinized state and will be stripped of his God-given human dignity.”

Buttigieg, who lived under the shadow of his father and was deeply shaped and molded by his marxist thought, is the perfect embodiment of Gramsci’s philosophy. The presidential hopeful’s popularity among Americans is further evidence that the nation, and with it the West, is indeed entering a new Dark Age.

Christine was born in Saigon, Vietnam one year before it fell to the Communists, and has lived in France and the United States. She has degrees from Notre Dame Law School and Oxford University. She is editor-in-chief of News at Church Militant.

So the long awaited declassification has just begun. President Trump has been announcing on FOX NEWS and in other appearances that FISA will be released to the pubic within perhaps four to six weeks. We can also look forward to the IG report perhaps in less than two more weeks. Then there are the hearings soon to be conducted by Lyndsey Graham, along with the criminal referrals from Devin Nunes to AG Barr, Huber intel, Judicial Watch findings and much more. Then there is a bit down the road, Julian Assange and let us not forget the 93,000 sealed indictment that are now beginning to be unsealed. I will further comment on this and other intel to be released along with behind the scenes data as these unprecedented historic events begin to unfold. Things are about to get real. Very real and very soon. What a great (but dangerous) time to be an American. I will briefly focus here in this post on the Fake News Advocating the Overthrow of the US Government.

Fake News Advocating the Overthrow of the U.S. Government

President Trump is on the pathway of resurrecting America by restoring our Constitutional Republic and restoring power to the people. You could describe these efforts perhaps under two broad banners. One: The Global Financial Reset, restoring sound money to the people. And two: The Rule of Law Reset (which includes draining the swamp). This brings us to the Fake News, a controlled apparatus of the Deep State, the government media complex. You see there are things called laws. 18 US Code Sec. 2384 & 2385 which addresses seditious conspiracy and advocating the overthrow of a government. They are in deep S*%t! So who may you ask? Here is a potential short list.

Stay tuned folks. It’s happening.

18 US Code Sec 2385

The code in part states. “Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or

Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or

Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

As used in this section, the terms “organizes” and “organize”, with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.

President Donald Trump joked during the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual meeting on Friday that he doesn’t need a gun to stop the attempted “coup” against his presidency.

“Every day of my administration we are taking power out of Washington, D.C., and returning it to the American people — where it belongs. And you see it now better than ever with all of the resignations of bad apples,” the president said.

“They tried for a coup, didn’t work out so well,” he added, presumably referring to the investigation into alleged Russia collusion and the FBI’s attempts to spy on his campaign.

WATCH:

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As the crowd of NRA members cheered, Trump slipped in a joke: “And I didn’t need a gun for that one, did I?”

The audience responded with laughter.

“We’re looking at things you wouldn’t believe possible in our country: corruption at the highest level,” Trump continued. “A disgrace. Spying, surveillance, trying for an overthrow. And we caught ’em. We caught ’em.’

Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday night that he plans to declassify scores of FBI documents related to the Russia probe, including FISA warrant applications against Carter Page and pages of notes of interviews with Bruce Ohr.

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I officially launched my campaign this past Thursday in Wythenshawe with my announcement that I had taken the decision to run. Thank you to everyone who welcomed me to the town!

As I have always said, I will work as hard as I possibly can to bring change and to fight for all of the ignored voices from all regions across our great country.

As you can imagine the next few weeks will be insanely busy for me, coupled with the increased resistance against me from all angles now that my plans have been revealed, therefore it’s a given that I will have to work many times harder than any other election candidate out there in order to stand a chance at getting our voices heard!

Joe Biden announced today and he is running on one of the core lies about President Trump. And it is a lie that is at once pervasive and really easy to reveal. It’s the lie about what Trump said after Charlottesville and represents everything wrong with the Democrat/media establishment.

Trump painfully clearly and obviously was talking about the debate over taking down confederate statues and monuments. His comments were not about Antifa and the neo-Nazis or some such. They were about the country’s history, which I’m not in favor of erasing because people don’t like it today.

This is about basic honesty. And the media, Joe Biden and virtually all Democrat leaders are blatantly lying about Trump’s Charlottesville comments. Most Americans don’t know it. Trump makes misstatements and sometimes lies. When he does, he gets called out by the media pretty quickly. Even when he doesn’t, he still does by hilariously named “fact-checkers.” But who calls out the media for lying? (Let’s not even start on Trump Russia collusion. This is just so easy.)

Recall that Trump’s comments came in the midst of tearing down confederate statues all over the South and so there was this rally planned in Charlottesville. It attracted some of the country’s worst elements, from alt righters and white supremacists to Antifa and BLM. That was where you get all of those pictures of violence. It also attracted people who wanted to preserve Southern and/or American history — the originators of the rally — people who were then generally shocked at what went on. One evil person drove his car into the crowd and killed a woman.

In the aftermath, Trump held a press conference, and this is where the big, fat lie comes in.

Here’s the full transcript of the presser from Politico. It’s right out here in the open. Everyone in the Democrat/media establishment knows this. And yet the lie continues.

Here’s the context for those who don’t have time to go through the transcript:

TRUMP: “Those people were also there, because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue Robert E. Lee. So – excuse me – and you take a look at some of the groups and you see, and you’d know it if you were honest reporters, which in many cases you’re not. Many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. So this week, it’s Robert E. Lee, I noticed that Stonewall Jackson’s coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week? And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after. You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?”

Trump is continually talking about the confederate statue controversy — not the so-called neo-Nazis — and asks where it all ends. A lot of Americans were asking the same question.

These press conferences are always a revelation as to how reporters just hound the President like they never, ever did Obama. No Democrat strategist could have done better than the press corps does in trying to trap the President.

Here’s the money line:

TRUMP: “Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down, of to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”

Again, obviously talking about the confederate statues debate when he says “very fine people on both sides,” not the violence between Antifa and the alt right thugs.

But he went on to make it even more clear.

I mean this is just crystal clear:

“I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.”

Right, he was talking about taking down confederate monuments or leaving them up.

The media has lied for a year and a half about this, playing ad infinitum “very fine people on both sides” and pretending — nay, lying — that he is talking about white nationalists and neo-Nazis, when he makes clear throughout the press conference his condemnation of them.

But for the next year and a half, they will continue endlessly playing his words wildly out of context. Nay, just lying. Democrats will repeat them and run them on ads. Lies.

Every Democrat leader, including Joe Biden and the whole Democrat field, is lying. The base believes the lie because they want to or are ignorant, trusting that CNN and NYT is telling them the truth.

No one else should. The slimming of an American President should be repudiated by all people of good will.

http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Rod Thomsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRod Thomson2019-04-25 16:48:422019-04-27 15:49:48Biden Will Run On A Central Lie About Donald Trump

Some conservatives may be discouraged by the latest surveys confirming that nearly one-half of millennials are receptive to living under socialism and regard capitalism as a captive of greed. In fact, they present us with a golden opportunity to educate all Americans about the manifold failures of socialism and the miraculous advances the world has made under free enterprise.

For example, the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson revealed at a Heritage Foundation event that between 2000 and 2012, “the rate of absolute poverty in the world fell by 50%.” That is, “the poor in the world are getting rich at a rate that is absolutely unparalleled in all of human history.”

Heritage’s 2019 Index of Economic Freedom reported that the greatest advances came in African and Asian countries (such as Botswana and Taiwan) that limited rather than expanded the role of government. More than 100 countries, many of them with less developed or emerging economies, showed marked advances in economic growth and individual prosperity.

Such good news is seldom reported by the mainstream media, Peterson said, because of the technological revolution that’s occurring in every form of media. All the broadcast networks, leading newspapers, and magazines exist in a shrinking market with dwindling margins of profit. To attract attention they are turning to an old journalism axiom: “If it bleeds, it leads.”

The news media obsess over the latest school shooting and bloody street riot. And yet, Peterson pointed out, the rates of violent crime in the United States and in most places “have plummeted in the last 50 years.”

The U.S. is now safer than it has been since the early 1960s, but the reporting of violent crime in America has materially increased as the mainstream media, in pursuit of ratings and revenue, have highlighted the dark side of society.

Conservatives must step forward to tell the truth about capitalism: the better life it has brought to billions of people, the diversity and freedom of choice it celebrates, the individual responsibility it encourages, the continuing miracle of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand,” its rejection of government planning that always leads to dictatorship.

Which brings us to the urgent task of exposing the chimera that socialism is just another political system. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and their fellow socialists carefully omit any mention of the principles laid down by Karl Marx, the founding father of Socialism, such as the abolition of private property and the centralization of the means of production and of decision-making. But make no mistake: There are radical socialists waiting in the wings to promote these extreme initiatives.

It’s up to us to tell the truth. Socialists promise a classless society but create the prison camps of the Gulag and the Isle of Pines. They assure peace but engage in wars of national liberation. They abolish private property but depend upon the underground economy. They stamp out religion but worship Big Brother. They bring down corrupt dictators but institute a dictatorship of the Party.

Here are some of the most telling failures of socialism:

One, socialism has never succeeded anywhere, including the Marxism-Leninism of the Soviet Union, the National Socialism of Nazi Germany, the Maoism of Communist China, the Chavez-Maduro socialism of Venezuela. It has never come close to anywhere near Marx’s ideal of a classless society.

Two, Marx has been wrong about nearly everything he predicted. The nation-state has not withered away. Capitalism didn’t break down as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Workers haven’t become revolutionaries but capitalists. The middle class hasn’t disappeared; indeed, it has expanded exponentially around the world (see the above about the sharp decline in global poverty). Marx’s attempt to use Hegel to create a “scientific socialism” has been an abject failure.

Three, socialism denies the existence of an essential human trait—human nature. Marx borrowed from the Enlightenment to declare that human nature was malleable, not constant. Christian theology with its idea of a fixed God-given nature infuriated Marx.

The socialist state established by Lenin tried for seven decades to create an entirely new human being—Soviet Man. In December 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev gave up trying and dissolved the world’s most spectacular failure in human engineering.

Four, socialism depends not upon the will of the people but on the dictatorship of the Party to remain in power. In “The God That Failed,” six famous Western intellectuals describe their journey into socialism and their exit when they encountered the gigantic gap between their vision of a socialist utopia and the totalitarian reality of the socialist state.

After visiting the Soviet Union, the French Nobel Laureate writer Andre Gide said: “I doubt where in any country in the world—not even in Hitler’s Germany—have the mind and spirit ever been less free, more bent, more terrorized and indeed vassalized than in the Soviet Union.”

What price socialism? The Chinese philosopher Lin Yutang listed the “little terrors” that prevailed in China—making children of 12 subject to capital punishment, sending women to work in underground coal mines, harassing workers during their lunchtime with threats of prison if they were late returning to work. A Soviet defector said of the perpetual surveillance: “We lived in a world swarming with invisible eyes and ears.”

Given the ignorance of so many of our fellow, especially young, Americans, telling the truth about socialism has become an imperative. If we do not, Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, and their fellow travelers will fill the vacuum with their misleading rhetoric. This is the truth about socialism: It is a pseudo-religion founded in pseudo-science and enforced by political tyranny.

Lee Edwards is the distinguished fellow in conservative thought at The Heritage Foundation’s B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics. A leading historian of American conservatism, Edwards has published 25 books, including “Just Right: A Life in Pursuit of Liberty.”

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

Former Vice-President Joe Biden in an email titled “I’m running for president” writes:

America is an idea. Based on a founding principle that all men are created equal.

It’s an idea that’s stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, and more powerful than any dictator.

It gives hope to the most desperate people on Earth. It instills in every single person in this country the belief that no matter where they start in life, there’s nothing they can’t achieve if they work at it.

Today, that idea is under attack.

We’ve got a president who assigns a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it.

A president who, like most charlatans and demagogues throughout history, seeks only to aggrandize himself, to consolidate his own power — by blaming the “other.”

If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation.

I cannot stand by and watch that happen.

Our core values, our very standing in the world, our democracy, and everything that makes us who we are is at stake.

That’s why I’m announcing my candidacy for President of the United States.

Does anyone remember when Joe Biden after 9/11 said,

“Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran”.

But the Iran Lobby’s biggest wins weren’t [Senators] Markey or Shaheen. The real victory had come long before when two of their biggest politicians, Joe Biden and John Kerry, had moved into prime positions in the administration. Not only IAPAC, but key Iran Lobby figures had been major donors to both men.

That list includes Housang Amirahmadi, the founder of the American Iranian Council, who had spoken of a campaign to “conquer Obama’s heart and mind” and had described himself as “the Iranian lobby in the United States.” It includes the Iranian Muslim Association of North America (IMAN) board members who had fundraised for Biden. And it includes the aforementioned Hassan Nemazee.

A member of Iran’s opposition had accused Biden’s campaigns of being “financed by Islamic charities of the Iranian regime based in California and by the Silicon Iran network.” Biden’s affinity for the terrorist regime in Tehran was so extreme that after 9/11 he had suggested, “Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran”.

Is the latest Democratic candidate for president a proxy of Iran? Is Joe Biden the Iranian Candidate?

The question: Will Biden’s historical support for a terrorist regime that chants “death to America” hurt his candidacy?

It seems that Democratic candidate for president Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has gotten donations from the sworn enemy of the United States of America – the Islamic Republic of Iran. Senator Gillibrand also has received donations from Hassan Nemazee, a multimillionaire Iranian-American investment banker and convicted felon.

Senator Markey has announced his support for the Iran deal that will let the terrorist regime inspect its own Parchin nuclear weapons research site, conduct uranium enrichment, build advanced centrifuges, buy ballistic missiles, fund terrorism and have a near zero breakout time to a nuclear bomb.

Gillibrand had also picked up money from the Iran Lobby’s Hassan Nemazee. Namazee [sic] was Hillary’s national campaign finance director who had raised a fortune for both her and Kerry before pleading guilty to a fraud scheme encompassing hundreds of millions of dollars. Nemazee had been an IAPAC trustee and had helped set up the organization.

Senator Gillibrand has strange bed fellows. You see, besides the Iranian chants of “death to America”, Hassan Nemazee is currently in prison for bank fraud. OpenSecrets.org in March 24, 2010 reported:

HOW DOES THE DEFENDANT PLEAD? Guilty. Hassan Nemazee, a prominent donor to Democrats, pleaded guilty to three counts of bank fraud and a count of wire fraud, according to Colin Moynihan at the New York Times. In the past, the Capital Eyereported on Nemazee and his immediate family’s contributions to federal candidates and political action committees, including thousands of dollars since 1990 to the likes of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama. (Many of the politicos have vowed to return or donate their Nemazee-related contributions.) As part of the plea agreement, Nemazee will forfeit assets totaling $292 million and spend between 15 to nearly 20 years in prison, Moynihan reports.

As the presidential primaries move forward it seems that this candidate has some skeletons in her closet. The question is will these revelations hurt or help Senator Gillibrand’s chances for the nomination?

Just about no one has moved away from where they stood on Nov. 9, 2016, when they woke up trying to comprehend that Donald Trump had overcome the odds, the press, and his own shortcomings to win that presidential election.

If you voted for him, you are still thrilled and optimistic about the future. I outlined in the book I co-authored with Brad Todd, “The Great Revolt,” that the election was never quite about Trump. Many of his voters saw his flaws with eyes wide open and voted heavily out of concern for their community, not necessary for themselves.

Many who did not vote for Trump loathe him with the intensity of a white-hot poker prodding at their soul. Their hair is still on fire, and nothing in the world can extinguish it until he is out of the White House, preferably in handcuffs.

If you are a reporter who lives and works within the counties that surround Washington, D.C.; New York; Chicago; or Los Angeles, it’s been a tough go. You don’t work with anyone in your newsroom who would have voted for Trump. You don’t socialize with anyone who voted for Trump. And you likely don’t know anyone at your children’s school who voted for Trump.

Many reporters, though not all, often view these voters monolithically, rather than as the complex coalition they have formed, painting them with a broad brush. They see the Trump voters as foolish or fooled at best, and as bigoted, unintelligent, and backward at worst.

Reporters marvel at these voters’ unwillingness to give up on a struggling town and move to a larger city or region, never understanding that they often happily trade a higher salary or a career with bonuses in another city for staying in a community where they have deep roots.

Since the day after Trump won, reports on his win focused heavily on his loss of the popular vote. Then there were the overhyped stories about a Wisconsin recount. Then the story developed that he won only because of Russia and that he probably helped Russia “hack the election.”

This simply reinforced Trump backers’ support for the man. Haters will hate.

That brings us back to this: Nothing has changed since Election Day 2016, because everything had changed for the C-suite influencers who control our culture, politics, entertainment, big tech, and news consumption.

They chose to ignore the signs—or, in their arrogance, they just missed what had been in plain sight for decades.

The fusion of conservatives and populists who make up the Trump coalition that placed Trump in the White House will continue long after whatever date the president leaves office. And despite the efforts of the press, and despite Trump’s own actions, those in the Trump coalition are unlikely to change their mind, because the only alternative is an elite who paints them as a villainous segment of our society.

Salena Zito is a CNN political analyst, and a staff reporter and columnist for the Washington Examiner. She is the co-author of “The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics.” Twitter: @salenazito.

Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

He had the black flag of jihad on his wall and posed for a picture with one finger raised — the sign that the Islamic State and other jihad groups use to signify the absolute Islamic monotheism for which they are doing violence.

Whose interests would his vote serve? Not those of Americans.

“Sanders & Harris Think Boston Marathon Bomber Should Be Allowed to Vote While in Prison,” by Corwin Parks, MRC TV, April 23, 2019.

RELATED VIDEO: Bernie Says Incarcerated Felons Should Have Right To Vote.

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column with video is republished with permission.

Democrats have spent the past two-plus years accusing the president of the United States and his allies of seditiously conspiring with our enemies to destroy “democracy.”

For the most part, this fairytale has been cynically deployed by politicians to undermine the legitimacy of a Republican presidency, yet millions of Americans now believe their votes were upended by a foreign power. There is no more serious charge against an elected official than treason.

Then again, for decades before the 2016 election, Democrats argued that Republicans were literally killing their fellow Americans when cutting taxes, murdering the sick when rejecting nationalized health care, and sentencing the poor to death when dismissing socialist schemes.

Not to mention suppressing the minority vote when asking for ID, engaging in Nazi-like actions when enforcing existing border laws, and destroying the world when failing to embrace a takeover of the economy. And so on.

This overwrought rhetoric is embedded in the everyday arguments of the mainstream left, and its intensity is only growing.

The same liberals are now demanding that conservatives stop quoting and posting videos of progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar belittling the 9/11 attacks, because doing so puts her life in danger. That’s quite the deal they’ve cooked up for themselves.

Nearly every presidential candidate and major Democratic leader has argued that Donald Trump’s criticism of Omar is out of line because of increased death threats against her. I do wonder how many death threats Trump or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or Rep. Steve Scalise receives every week. I imagine it’s considerable.

But as usual, most of the media took up the Democrats’ cause, trying to infantilize a 38-year-old woman. “Trump clearly unmoved over increased concerns raised by Dems over Omar’s safety,” noted CNN’s Manu Raju after Trump attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s handling of the Minnesota representative.

Do reporters and columnists consider the safety of the Trump administration before writing critically about it? I hope not. Because free speech—political discourse and good faith political reporting included—shouldn’t be inhibited by prospective actions of third-party nuts.

It is imperative, in fact, that we don’t let those nuts undercut our ability to freely express our political disagreements. If Americans pondered the actions of political terrorists every time they took a position, they would only be empowering criminals.

Not one of Trump’s critical comments about Omar called for violence in any way. He didn’t rationalize chasing Omar out of a restaurant or standing in front of her home with a bullhorn. The idea that politicians should have immunity from criticism is not something journalists, or anyone who values free expression, should give any credence. Yet, here we are.

Let’s remember one of the times we actually saw overt political violence was when a progressive activist and Sen. Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer attempted to assassinate the entire Republican congressional delegation. As far as I can tell, no one in the media asked Sanders or any other Democrats to temper their political rhetoric about Republicans.

If the reverse had occurred, we would have been plunged into a national discussion about right-wing rhetoric. (Wait, what am I saying, Republicans are already asked to take responsibility for violent actions of people who have nothing to do with them.)

Attempting to chill speech isn’t a new tactic for Democrats, and certainly not when it comes to Omar. As an African-American Muslim woman, the congresswoman has reached the pinnacle of special status, and thus any criticism, even quoting her verbatim or playing a video of her, is categorized as racist.

There are no specific guidelines for when it’s acceptable to be critical of the things an African-American Muslim woman politician says, though, for most people, the answer is “never.”

Of course, the notion that someone’s color or ethnicity or religion offers them dispensation from political debate is one of the most destructive aspects of this debate.

It was Democrats who chose to rally around Omar, celebrating her immigrant story and appearing with her on magazine covers. Now those Democrats are compelled to cover up and rationalize her incendiary comments.

There is no freshman-level Marxist gobbledygook or conspiracy theory that Omar won’t regurgitate, from claiming that the U.S. was “founded by genocide” to claiming that American power is built through “neocolonialism” to embracing morally decrepit ideas about the Middle East and Jews.

Democrats first covered for her actions by watering down an already-useless resolution condemning her anti-Semitic comments with a bunch of vacuous censures of all bigotry.

It is clear to me that Omar minimized 9/11, as she does Islamic terrorism in general. It’s clear to me she is a defender of theocrats and an apologist for terror organizations like Hamas. You might disagree. You can view her comments and decide for yourself.

Whatever the case, threats of violence against politicians are illegal and should be condemned by any decent person. In the end, though, whether Omar has increased threats against her or not, she is a public figure and deserves no special dispensation from debate.

Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

Just a few months ago, in an article entitled “Still the Smartest Guy in the Room,” I wrote the following about President Trump:

Well, whaddaya know? In the midterm elections of November 6, 2018, the American people rewarded the president—for only the third time in almost a hundred years—with a net gain of three and possibly four Senate seats, lost half the House seats that his predecessor lost, and left the radical leftwing Democrats not rejoicing at their meager gains, but still chomping at the bit to bring down the president who has effectively destroyed everything they believed in, worked for, and thought they achieved over the past 75 years.

Yes, President Trump posed a mortal threat to the Left’s very raison d’être––a globalist one-world order controlled by them! And so way back in 2015, when he announced his intention to run for the presidency, the “connected” guys of the D.C. swamp ––to use the vocabulary of the mob––decided to pool their formidable resources to “clip” the billionaire business mogul, if not physically (although I wouldn’t put it that past them), then by proving that their manufactured fiction of candidate Trump’s collusion with Russia to win the presidency was, in fact, true and therefore impeachable.

In that article, I listed all the fanatical Detectives Javert––the top dogs at our top-secret intelligence agencies (and many of their wives who also played central roles)––and elaborated on their impressive credentials, privileged educations, vast experience, and, oh, their appointments to high office by the former occupant of the Oval Office, Barack Obama.

Don’t forget––the fish always stinks from the head!

THE WITCH HUNT

Special Counsel Robert Mueller took his time––more than two years––as he hired almost two-dozen partisan Democrats (who contributed to the Obama and Clinton campaigns) to join his “objective” truth-finding effort. Here is a breakdown of the invasive colonoscopy he performed on the President of the United States.

Over 675-days,

Over $30 million dollars,

Over 2,800 subpoenas,

Over 500 warrants,

Over 500 witness interviews, including those whose lives were ruined for offenses unrelated to President Trump,

Over a million documents submitted by the White House.

The net result, as we all now know––the president committed no collusion and no obstruction, although the Regressives who continue to pursue some bogus crime––I refer to the obsessed Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Adam Schiff (D-CA), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and a few others, who, as they say, can’t let go!

But why? Most of these people once figuratively kissed the ring of businessman Donald Trump when he was a Democrat and they groveled for the campaign cash he generously doled out and lusted for an invitation to play golf with the mega-mogul or to dine in the company of his exquisite wife at the palatial Mar-a-Lago resort or at numerous other residences, including his Manhattan penthouse in Trump Tower.

Why then the wild-eyed, ferocious animosity when he announced for the presidency and––to their horror––was elected America’s 45th president?

IT’S NOT ABOUT THE BENJAMINS, BABY!

In most cases in politics, when you peel back the layers of the onion, it’s all about the money. But not in this case.

And it’s not about the bogus excuse that Hillary lost the election. Most people can’t stand the woman. While some women would have reflexively voted for any person with the right plumbing, who can take feminists seriously anymore, now that they’ve embraced infanticide as a “human right”? In truth, most people cringed throughout Hillary’s coughing-fit, seizure-plagued, issue-impoverished campaign and were––and are––happy, finally, to have her off the national stage.

And it wasn’t candidate Trump’s “treatment” of women or his locker-room talk, when Americans had already endured eight years of Bill Clinton spitting in Hillary’s face every day with his serial philandering or, without his Secret Service detail flying 26 times on the “Lolita Express” to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island.

And it wasn’t the right-of-center platform candidate Trump was running on because Democrats had already raised to an art form the softening up and watering down of other Republican presidents’ wish lists. And they’d already succeeded in inflicting Americans with socialized medicine (Obamacare) and socialized education (Common Core), with degrading our military, contaminating the public imagination with the hoax of global warming, and actualizing the Cloward-Piven strategy to overload the welfare system by establishing Sanctuary Cities with the goal of segueing from socialism to their preferred system of government, communism.

And it wasn’t about the power of the media to shape/influence/determine public opinion. As I wrote in a former article, “Media Whores,” people who have the conceit to call themselves journalists are really employees who take direct orders from their employers. Today, only six media empires rule radio, TV and print publications––five of them run by globalists and only one by soon-to-retire conservative Rupert Murdoch (Fox TV, the NY Post, the Wall St. Journal, et al)––and now by his liberal sons, Lachlan and James…hence the unfortunate leftist infiltration of Fox.

And it wasn’t even my original theory, which was that Mr. Trump threatened to disrupt the globalists’ One World Order. The powers-that-be in the D.C. swamp are too arrogant and narcissistic to entertain the notion that a single individual could upset their decades-old, carefully constructed apple cart.

None of these things inspired the predatory animus of the Democrats that we’ve witnessed for the past three years. Instead, as candidate Trump’s campaign proceeded and he summarily withered “Low-energy Jeb,” “Lyin’ Ted,” “Little Marco,” “Crooked Hillary,” “Crazy Bernie,” “Pocahontas,” on and on, a cold chill began to rise in the ranks of the left: Nothing can touch this guy!

They saw that even before the election he could single-handedly destroy a hot career like Megyn Kelly’s.

And nothing they threw at him succeeded in denting the natural ebullience and epic energy that infuriates them to this day.

THE COUP DE GRÁCE

And then it happened! The Kiss of Death, so to speak––the nine words that locked the Regressives in combat with candidate and then President Trump forever.

It was in early October of 2016 when Mr. Trump was engaged in one of the campaign’s many debates that he said the following: “If I were president, Hillary would be in jail.”

That was it––simple as that!

Now you know what this three-year safari for Big Game has been all about! It’s been about all the deeply corrupt––indeed criminal––swamp creatures creating so much chaos, so many dirt roads, so many bogus accusations and innuendos and tabloid headlines in order to keep the real collusion experts and the real obstructers of justice out of the spotlight, out of the courthouse, and out of Leavenworth!

There are so many crimes––or potential crimes––involved in what the Obama White House orchestrated through his Justice Department and FBI (among other departments) that it’s impossible to list them all.

In a stunning analysis in the World Tribune entitled Justice: Suddenly, the hunters have become the hunted, historian Victor Davis Hanson is quoted as saying that those “who cried the loudest about leaking, collusion, lying, and obstruction are themselves soon very likely to be accused of just those crimes.” Among them, Hanson lists the following:

James Comey: The former FBI director falsely testified that the Steele dossier was not the main basis for obtaining FISA court warrants. On at least 245 occasions, Comey swore under oath that he either did not know, or could not remember, when asked direct questions about his conduct at the FBI. He likely lied when he testified that he did not conclude his assessment of the Clinton illegal email use before he had even interviewed Clinton, an assertion contradicted by his own written report. I guess his credo and modus operandi are reflected in the subtitle of his recent autobiography A Higher Loyalty: “Truth, Lies, and Leadership.”

Andrew McCabe: The former FBI deputy director currently is under criminal referral for lying to federal investigators about leaking to the media. He and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein each have accused each other of not telling the whole truth about their shared caper of trying to force President Trump out of office by invoking the 25th Amendment.

James Clapper: The former director of national intelligence has admitted to lying under oath to Congress – and since lied about his earlier admission of that lying. His recent sworn congressional testimony of not having leaked information about the Steele dossier to the media is again likely to be untrue, given that Clapper had admitted to speaking to CNN’s Jake Tapper about the dossier’s contents. CNN, remember, would in turn go on to hire the mendacious Clapper as an analyst. And once on air, Clapper would insist that Trump was both a Russian asset and thus guilty of collusion crimes greater than those of Watergate. Lies. All lies.

John Brennan: The former CIA director has admitted to lying under oath to Congress on two occasions. He may well face further legal exposure. When he lost his security clearance, he repeatedly lied that Trump was guilty of collusion, however that non-crime is defined. And as the Mueller probe wound down, Brennan with pseudo-authority and trumped-up hints of phony access to secret intelligence sources deceitfully assured the nation that Trump within days would face indictment – perhaps along with his family members.

Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills: The Hillary Clinton aides likely also lied to FBI investigators when they claimed they had no knowledge while working at the State Department that their boss was using an illegal private email server. In fact, they had read her communications on it and actually inquired about its efficacy.

Samantha Power: The former UN ambassador in her last year in office requested on more than 260 occasions to unmask names of Americans monitored by the government. Yet Power later claimed that most of these requests were not made by her. And yet she either does not know or does not cite who exactly used her name to make such requests during the election cycle. In any case, no one has come forward to admit to the improper use of Power’s name to request the hundreds of unmaskings.

Susan Rice: The former Obama national security adviser could have made a number of unmasking requests in Power’s name, although she initially denied making any requests in her own name – a lie she immediately amended. Rice, remember, repeatedly lied on national television about the cause and origins of the Benghazi attack, denied there were cash payments for hostages in the Iran deal, misled about the conduct of Beau Bergdahl, and prevaricated over the existence and destruction of weapons of mass destruction in Syria.

Bruce Ohr, the former deputy attorney general did not tell the truth on a federal written disclosure required by law when he omitted the key fact that his wife Nellie worked on Christopher Steele’s Fusion GPS dossier. Ohr’s testimony that he completely briefed key FBI officials on the dossier in July or August 2016 is not compatible to what former FBI attorney Lisa Page has testified to concerning the dates of her own knowledge of the Steele material.

Hanson has also written at length about the bogus Obstruction of Justice accusation, the illegally obtained FISA warrants, the phony Steele dossier paid for by Hillary Clinton, the fishy “coincidental” meeting of Bill Clinton with AG Loretta Lynch on a Phoenix airport tarmac, and the wrongness of Andrew McCabe, Ron Rosenstein, and so many others ever having been in charge of investigations that smacked of conflicts of interest and other malfeasances––all worthy of criminal investigation and, from what I’ve read, indictment!

And that is not to omit the destruction of 33,000 e-mails by Ms. Hillary, and the much more egregious and criminal issue of Benghazi!

As his first legislative session winds down, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—elected five months ago by the narrowest of margins—has soared in popularity while pursuing an aggressive reform agenda that includes reshaping the state’s judiciary, investigating school safety, and enforcing immigration laws.

“He’s off to a fast start. He’s a trailblazer throughout the state,” Scott Parkinson, who served as chief of staff for DeSantis in the U.S. House of Representatives, told The Daily Signal.

“As a member of Congress, he had to be a consensus builder and build coalitions. As a governor he can lead on principle. He has such a unique life experience to be a leader,” Parkinson said.

DeSantis, 40, is a graduate of Yale and Harvard Law. He went on to serve as a Navy JAG officer, as an adviser to Navy SEALs in Iraq, and as counsel for the U.S. detention center for suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before first being elected to the House in 2012.

Parkinson, now vice president of government affairs at Club for Growth, a conservative business advocacy group, said that when he saw DeSantis in late February, the governor was in active mode.

“He said he had been to his fourth city in a day,” Parkinson said. “He’s not tied to a desk in Tallahassee. He demonstrates leadership.”

DeSantis is a husband and father, too.

In 2010, the Jacksonville native married the woman who would become first lady of Florida—Casey Black DeSantis, an Emmy Award-winning TV host. They have one daughter, Madison, and a son, Mason.

In the governor’s race, DeSantis, a Republican, beat Democrat Andrew Gillum by fewer than 1% of the votes. A Mason-Dixon poll released April 4, though, shows DeSantis with a 62% approval rating. A Quinnipiac University Poll in March showed DeSantis with a 59% approval rating.

“Not surprisingly, he has had a bold agenda that has been both conservative and practical,” Sal Nuzzo, vice president for policy at James Madison Institute, a Tallahassee-based conservative think tank, told The Daily Signal.

“It is a policy-driven bold agenda, but it is refreshing to some Democrats and, in some cases, former opponents.”

School Safety

At DeSantis’ request, the Florida Supreme Court in late February ordered a statewide grand jury to investigate whether school administrators are violating any laws and potentially endangering students.

“What’s truly devastating is that the tragedy in Parkland was avoidable,” DeSantis said in a written statement. “As governor, I have a moral obligation to protect the children in our state, which is why I have requested a statewide grand jury to investigate school safety practices and failures occurring around the state and to identify measures to improve the safety of our students.”

On Feb. 14, 2018, a former student with a rifle left 17 dead and 17 others wounded at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

The shooter was known to have become violent in the past, but school officials reportedly ignored numerous warning signs at a time when the school district was promoting a politically popular alternative discipline policy.

Among the new governor’s first acts in office was to suspend Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel for his office’s poor response to the Parkland shooting. DeSantis replaced Israel with Gregory Tony, a former Coral Springs police sergeant.

Israel sued. On April 2, Broward Circuit Court Judge David Haimes upheld the governor’s authority to suspend the sheriff for neglect of duty and incompetence.

Still, Democrats in the state oppose the governor’s support for arming teachers, as do most voters despite giving DeSantis high marks, according to polls.

“Florida voters have stated loudly and clearly that they don’t want guns in our schools, yet DeSantis and Republicans continue to push legislation that would do exactly the opposite,” Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Terrie Rizzo said in a formal statement.

“Teachers don’t want this, parents don’t want this, our state does not want this,” Rizzo said. “This bill threatens the safety of our students and teachers. It’s time for Republicans to drop the NRA’s dangerous agenda and start focusing on the issues Floridians care about.”

Conservative Court Majority

In what could be his biggest legacy accomplishment, DeSantis quickly reshaped the Florida Supreme Court from a 4-3 liberal majority to a 6-1 conservative majority.

Florida has mandatory retirement ages for its state Supreme Court justices. In 2018, voters approved a measure raising that age from 70 to 75.

Upon the retirement of three justices, DeSantis named three relatively young successors: Barbara Lagoa, 51, the first Cuban-American female on the court; Carlos Muñiz, 49, the first Nicaraguan-American; and Robert Luck, 40, the first Orthodox Jew.

“He named three justices and changed the Supreme Court for a generation,” Parkinson said. “Even though we’ve had Republican governors since the 1990s, none [has] had a Supreme Court to back them up.”

The significance of state supreme courts should never be underestimated, said Carrie Severino, chief counsel to the Judicial Crisis Network.

“It is an incredibly significant shift,” Severino told The Daily Signal, referring to Florida’s highest court. “It was one of the more liberal state supreme courts in the nation. It has gone from a 4-3 liberal majority to a 6-1 constitutional originalist majority.”

“The Florida Supreme Court was regularly causing trouble for Rick Scott,” she said of DeSantis’ Republican predecessor. “About 90% of all cases are heard in state courts, and state supreme courts are often the last word on an array of issues.”

Education Reform

DeSantis signed an executive order to “eliminate” the controversial Common Core education standards in Florida schools.

The measure requires the state to “equip high school graduates with sufficient knowledge of America’s civics, particularly the principles reflected in the United States Constitution, so as to be capable of discharging the responsibilities associated with American citizenship.”

The governor also opened up avenues for school choice for parents, including vouchers for private school.

“I have heard parents from across the state loud and clear, and they all agree that it is time to finally end Common Core,” DeSantis said in a formal statement in late January, adding:

So today, we are taking action through this executive order to ensure that Florida has the best academic standards in the nation and eliminating Common Core from our schools, as well as reaffirming my commitment to prepare our students for the real world through an increased focus on civic education.”

Accountability, Deregulation, Other Measures

DeSantis held a summit Jan. 31 with state agency chiefs, called “Florida Deregathon,” which resulted in rolling back the state’s occupational licensing requirements. The governor’s office sponsored the event in conjunction with the Department of Business and Professional Regulation and several state professional licensing boards.

In an effort to correct a past wrong—at least for the record—DeSantis issued posthumous pardons to the “Groveland 4,” four black men accused of raping a 17-year-old white girl in 1949.

The men were victims of mob violence and police shootings during the South’s Jim Crow era. The Executive Clemency Board unanimously approved the governor’s pardons.

“For 70 years, these four men have had their history wrongly written for crimes they did not commit,” DeSantis said, adding:

I believe the rule of law is society’s sacred bond. When it is trampled, we all suffer. For the Groveland 4, the truth was buried. The perpetrators celebrated. But justice has cried out from that day until this.

After decades of election problems, DeSantis also pushed for and accepted the resignation of Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes and suspended Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher.

The governor also suspended the mayor of Port Richey, Dale Glen Massad, calling him “clearly unfit.”

Before the suspension, deputies from the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office showed up at Massad’s house with an arrest warrant on charges of illegally practicing medicine at home without a license. The mayor allegedly began shooting at them.

Business Mission to Israel

DeSantis announced Tuesday that he would lead a business development mission to Israel in late May, to boost economic ties between Israel and Florida.

“I promised to be the most pro-Israel governor in America and that the first delegation I would lead would be to the state of Israel,” DeSantis said on the same day as Israel’s elections.

“Today, I’m pleased to report that I’m keeping that promise,” he said. “Our delegation will bring business, academic, and political leaders to help strengthen the bond between Florida and Israel.”

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

Sen. Bernie Sanders belatedly released his tax returns this week. The New York Times reported:

The returns show that Mr. Sanders’s earnings shot up after his first presidential bid, when he built up a vast national following. He and his wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, reported income that topped $1 million in 2016 and 2017, lifted by proceeds from his books.

The couple had an adjusted gross income of $561,293 in 2018, according to their most recent tax return. Mr. Sanders had about $393,000 in book income last year, and he and his wife reported giving nearly $19,000 to charity.

His income now puts him within the top 1 percent of taxpayers, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service.

Apparently, nothing succeeds like penalizing success.

Sanders Shrugged

Sen. Sanders said, “I wrote a best-selling book. If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.” But his incarnation as John Galt didn’t last. In a Fox News town-hall, Bret Baier asked him, “When you wrote the book and you made the money, isn’t that the definition of capitalism and the American dream?”

After an uncomfortable pause, the senator answered, “No.”

But he is wrong. Having an idea, acting on it, and making a pile of money is the very definition of successful entrepreneurship.

Sen. Sanders took a laptop costing a few hundred dollars and produced, in Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In, a document for which he was paid $795,000. Taking an input valued at a few hundred dollars and turning it into an output worth $795,000 is the essence of entrepreneurial capitalism.

And Senator Sanders is right—he deserves that money. In January 2018, an estimated 73 percent of US adults owned either a desktop or a laptop. That’s 187.4 million people. How many of them produced a word document worth $795,000? Very few. No doubt Jersey Shore’s Snooki used a laptop like Sen. Sanders’ to produce Gorilla Beach, her debut novel, but there were more people willing to pay—and pay more money—for Sen. Sanders’ book. Value is subjective, after all. By providing greater satisfaction, Sen. Sanders reaped greater rewards.

Be the Change? You First

Sen. Sanders and his wife paid an effective tax rate of 26 percent, well below the levels of 70 percent or so he claims “the 1 percent”—which includes him—ought to pay. They topped this up with $19,000 in charitable donations, another 3.4 percent of their income.

But if Sen. Sanders really thinks he isn’t having enough of his income taken from him, he can solve this situation unilaterally, and he can do it today—without waiting for Congress. He can donate his money to the federal government.

On Wednesday night, Tucker Carlson asked a Sanders supporter, Nomiki Konst, why he didn’t do just that. “Because that’s not how our government functions,” she replied, “Where do you send that form? The IRS? ‘Hi IRS, here’s a cheque for 70 percent?’”

“Who does that?” she went on, “I would love to see one guest on your show that has actually written an entire paycheck.” In fact, so far in 2019, the Treasury has received $3.7 million in “Gift Contributions to Reduce Debt Held by the Public.” Carlson could get one of these donors on his show.

There’s an old line that “Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together.” Konst’s argument shows how hollow that phrase really is.

Sen. Sanders has a choice, as do the members of the so-called Patriotic Millionaires. If they truly feel that politicians are not getting enough money to spend, they can give them some more. They can choose to “Be the change.” But they don’t. They will only act on their professed desire if other people are forced to act along with them. For all their talk about wanting to give the government more money, they make such payment contingent on other people who may not want to do so being forced to by law.

This is a curious form of generosity. It is an even more curious form of choice. Where is the choice for the people who think they already pay enough in tax? Government is not simply the name we give to the things we “choose to do together,” it is the name we give to things where 51 percent of people choose something, and the other 49 percent have to go along. As economist Milton Friedman once wrote, “You may get to vote once a year—on what? On a long, long list of propositions, with very little relationship between your vote and what ultimately happens.”

Socialism Is Not about Sharing

Sen. Sanders claims to be a socialist, and socialism is often described as “sharing.” But there is nothing inherently socialist about sharing. You can just as easily share under capitalism. Indeed, the latest World Giving Index produced by the Charities Aid Foundation listed the United States, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands—all seven of them capitalist countries—in the top 10 most charitable countries over the last five years. By contrast, Venezuela, formerly Sen. Sanders’s poster child for “democratic” socialism, ranked a miserly 115th in 2017.

In 2011, the year when Sen. Sanders was boosting Venezuela, it ranked 118th compared to first place for the capitalist USA. But then, according to the World Bank, in 2011, GDP per capita in the US was $49,000 compared to just $14,000 in Venezuela*. Under capitalism, you actually have something to share. As Margaret Thatcher once put it,

No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions; he had money, as well.

Giving your money voluntarily—what most people would think of as sharing—is not what socialists actually mean by the word. That is why Sen. Sanders and the Patriotic Millionaires refuse to give the federal government their money voluntarily while a mechanism exists to do so and others are already using it. Their idea of sharing is that the government takes money from somebody else to hand it out as it sees fit. We already have a degree of this in capitalist societies. Today’s socialists want to increase the amount of people’s wealth that passes through the hands of the government.

The socialist notion of “sharing” is nothing of the kind. Sharing is voluntary, this is coerced. It is not sharing but coercion that is the essence of socialism. As the British author Kingsley Amis—a youthful socialist who came to support Thatcher—put it, “if socialism is not about compulsion, it is about nothing.”

http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2019-04-22 05:52:322019-04-24 05:41:23Bernie Is a Capitalist, Whether He Likes It or Not

Could major U.S. banks like Chase be barring conservative and rightwing organizations from making business transactions because of their political views?

In our newest video, Veritas introduces you to Enrique Tarrio. Tarrio is the chairman of the controversial Proud Boys and is an entrepreneur who sells provocative tee shirts and merchandise on his website 1776.shop.

Chase Bank refused to tell Tarrio why they suspended his account. Shocked and frustrated, Tarrio reached out to Project Veritas.